The robins return first, followed by fiddleheads and flowers.

And then, just as spring becomes summer, the berries are back. For me, these small fruits are one of the great joys of the season, and while I do love to stop at the local farm stand for a pint, that’s not exactly what I mean. I’m referring to the wild fruits found in the nooks and crannies of our three-acre lot. Year after year, these scraggly, untended, mowed-over plants continue to offer their tiny, surprising delights.

“You cannot buy that pleasure which it yields to him who truly plucks it,” wrote Thoreau, ruminating on the topic of wild fruit. As always, Thoreau was right. By mid-to-late June, our field bursts with bean-sized strawberries. They are adorable, and just as tasty as the larger, cultivated stock. My family and I wait for the red berries to ripen and then head out to collect a cup or two to nibble. It is the extraordinary experience of handpicking them just inches from the ground that makes the treat even sweeter.

The strawberries last but two weeks, and then they are gone—to the deer, to the bear, to a sun too hot for such delicate edibles. But then July comes along, and with it, raspberries. We discovered them last summer, tart and seedy in a maze of leafy vines behind my daughter’s swing set. Just four years out of the suburbs, we are not experienced hunters or gatherers. When we first noticed these pink-red berries, I urged my husband not to eat them until he had consulted a field guide lest they be poisonous, like the deadly yew berries I mashed up and played with as a child.

In August, we look for the blackberries, and we always find some along the edge of the field. Verdant and thorny (who knew they were part of the rose family?) the bushes blend into the landscape until the shiny black fruit appears. We harvest a few of these bitter beauties too, just for the simple pleasure of doing so.

Then comes apple season. Last year on Labor Day, my husband proposed a family project. We would pick the most mature, least wormy apples from our few unkempt apple trees, and we’d bake a pie. He remembered an elderly neighbor used to do this, and he was willing to climb through brambles and up a tall ladder to reach the uppermost crop. We must have collected (and peeled) about 50 miniature apples (of unknown variety), but we had a delicious pie that night after dinner. It was a revitalizing experience for us and our daughter.

I’ve joked to friends and family that foraging in my backyard is the ultimate in organic local food. We may all strive to be locavores, but it’s a limiting and time-consuming pursuit; for many of us, it is easier to buy an organic apple from New Zealand than from a native orchard. We may all wish for the idyll of a summer day in the country spent plucking wild fruits, but life—and the brevity of the growing season—sometimes direct otherwise. So a handful of berries or a bag of apples from the yard sustains—if not my body, then my spirit. As Thoreau wrote, “The value of these wild fruits is not in the mere possession or eating of them, but in the sight and enjoyment of them.” 